One day, in 1814, a workman hurried into Stephenson’s cottage with the startling information that the deepest main of the colliery was on fire! He immediately hastened to the pit-head, about a hundred yards off, whither the women and children of the colliery were running, with wildness and terror depicted in every face. In a commanding voice Stephenson ordered the engineman to lower him down the shaft in the corve. There was peril, it might be death, before him, but he must go. He was soon at the bottom, and in the midst of the men, who were paralysed by the danger which threatened the lives of all in the pit. Leaping from the corve on its touching the ground, he called out; “Are there six men among you who have courage to follow me? If so, come, and we will put the fire out.” The Killingworth pitmen had the most perfect confidence in their engine-wright, and they readily volunteered to follow him. [Picture: The Pit Head, West Moor] Silence succeeded the frantic tumult of the previous minute, and the men set to work with a will. In every mine, bricks, mortar, and tools enough are at hand, and by Stephenson’s direction the materials were forthwith carried to the required spot, where, in a very short time a wall was raised at the entrance to the main, he himself taking the most active part in the work. The atmospheric air was by this means excluded, the fire was extinguished, the people were saved from death, and the mine was preserved. This anecdote of Stephenson was related to the writer, near the pit-mouth, by one of the men who had been present and helped to build up the brick wall by which the fire was stayed, though several workmen were suffocated. He related that, when down the pit some days after, seeking out the dead bodies, the cause of the accident was the subject of conversation, and Stephenson was asked, “Can nothing be done to prevent such awful occurrences?” His reply was that he thought something might be done. “Then,” said the other, “the sooner you start the better; for the price of coal-mining now is _pitmen’s lives_.”